


Belonging

by smarshtastic



Series: McReyes Charity Week [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15922313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/pseuds/smarshtastic
Summary: Gabe can taste bile on the back of his tongue. He knows a little about the intricacies of the dynamics of Deadlock, of the power structure of the gang. Jesse had been well-respected, even at a young age, and Gabe knew the sorts of things he had had to do to prove himself to the Deadlock hierarchy. Jesse didn’t talk about it with Gabe, and Gabe didn’t press. He isn’t Jesse’s therapist.---After a mission, Jesse has doubts about his place in the world, and Gabe helps.





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [McReyes Charity Week](https://twitter.com/mcreyes4charity)! Thanks so much to this lovely person for donating to [ECPAT International](http://www.ecpat.org/) \- an amazing organization that works to end the sexual exploitation of children. If you're interested in donating, check out the McReyes Charity Week page for the PDF of all the works that were created for this event! 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](wictorwictor.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/smarshtastic) ♥

If Gabe had his way, Blackwatch would never have been deployed on the mission to Santa Fe. There were a myriad of reasons it didn’t make sense for his team to respond to these sorts of cases - not any more. Blackwatch has hoisted itself up by the bootstraps, making do with what resources they could scrape off the dregs of Overwatch’s budget. They had to be resourceful, scrappy. They weren’t Overwatch’s errand boys. They had come into their own. 

Gabe and Jesse had built Blackwatch together. Jesse was Gabe’s first recruit - recruited right out of the holding cell after the Deadlock bust. Gabe had seen something in the beat up gang member who had barely taken his first steps into adulthood; there was time to turn Jesse’s life around, to make it right. A second chance. To say that Jesse jumped at the chance would be a too-rosy revision of history, but when Jesse came around to the idea - that he could be on the side of the good guys, do something meaningful with his life - Jesse threw himself into the job. He kept up with Gabe every step of the way. He didn’t have Gabe’s military training, but Jesse’s childhood in Deadlock gave him a...  _ different _ set of skills which complemented Gabe’s. The two of them pulled Blackwatch into a place of legitimacy; a real, respected covert ops organization under the Overwatch umbrella. Together, the two of them had saved countless lives, brought down all manner of nefarious plots, destabilized terror organizations. 

At the end of the day, though, Gabe and Jesse are still human. Which is why Gabe didn’t want to take the Santa Fe mission. 

“It’ll be fine, Gabe,” Jesse assures Gabe as they gear up. Gabe glances at him sideways. 

“We can get someone else on the case,” Gabe says. It’s the second time he’s tried to give Jesse an out - he doesn’t want to be presumptuous, of course, but he knows Jesse’s history. And he knows Jesse’s been through the gamut of therapy; it was one of Gabe’s stipulations when he recruited Jesse that Jesse take full advantage of Overwatch’s mental health services. It had done Jesse a world of good. But Gabe - always protective of his people - didn’t want to push too hard. 

“You know there ain’t anyone on the team who knows this territory better than me,” Jesse says. He holsters his gun and pauses, meeting Gabe’s eyes. His voice goes softer. “Don’t worry about me, Gabe. I got this.”

Gabe lets his breath out and gives Jesse a stiff nod. He trusts Jesse to know what he can and can’t handle. Besides, he’ll be with him the whole time. They’ve got this.

It’s a straightforward weapons bust, the likes of which Blackwatch has done dozens of times before. Jesse takes point on directing the squad through the warehouse. The team spreads out and locks down the exits. What few hostiles they encounter are easily subdued and cuffed for transport to the Grand Mesa base for processing. Once the weapons cache is secure, Jesse peels off to do one more perimeter sweep before they make their exit, sending Shiga and Valdez in the opposite direction. Gabe stands over the captured hostiles with Kepler, listening to the sporadic chatter on the comms. He can almost breathe easy - this mission went far better than Gabe could have hoped. He has to remind himself that it’s not yet over. They still have to get out of here. 

A gunshot echoes through the warehouse. Gabe wheels on the spot, looking around in vain for the source of the sound. 

“Team, report,” Gabe barks into the comms. 

“Newton and Newton, all clear.”

“Valdez here.”

“Shiga. I think it was on the south side of the building.”

Jayachandran and Edwards check in, agreeing with Shiga’s assessment. Another gunshot rings out, and then another. Gabe feels his blood run cold. 

“McCree, report,” Gabe says, doing his best to avoid looking at Kepler. There’s no response on the comms. Gabe balls his fists at his sides. “McCree. Report.”

The silence on the comms makes Gabe’s chest tighten, his throat constrict. He can hardly hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. 

“Spread out,” Gabe says finally, his voice much calmer than he feels. “Find McCree.”

A chorus of affirmatives come through the comm and Gabe lets himself feel grateful for his team, just for a moment. It’s not enough to soothe the anxiety that has his heart in a vice. He knew this mission was a bad idea. 

“We got him,” Shiga’s voice finally comes over the comms. “One hostile casualty, and McCree’s injured but he’s - we’ve got him.”

“Get him to transport,” Gabe says. “Let’s get out of here.”

Gabe tries to focus on the extraction. With Kepler’s help, Gabe gets the captured criminals packed into the waiting shuttle. Edwards and Jayachandran rig the weapons cache to explode once they’re a safe distance away. Valdez and Shiga haul Jesse into the shuttle, supporting him between them. He’s bleeding from his shoulder and a cut over his eye, which is already swollen shut. He’s avoiding looking at Gabe, a peculiar kind of hollowness in his other eye. Gabe feels the bile rise up in the back of his throat. 

“He’s stable,” Valdez says. “But there’s a bullet lodged in his shoulder I couldn’t get to.”

“I’m okay,” Jesse croaks. Valdez and Shiga lower him into a seat and strap him in. 

“You were shot,” Shiga says. “You’re not okay.”

“Had worse,” Jesse says, letting his head fall back against the headrest and his eye slide closed. 

“We’ll deal with it back at the base,” Gabe says. “Wake, Tack - get us to Grand Mesa.”

The shuttle lifts off and, even though it’s a quick hop from Santa Fe to Grand Mesa, it feels like an age. Gabe hovers near Valdez as she cleans up Jesse, who doesn’t say anything for the entire shuttle ride. He doesn’t open his eyes either. His breath is coming in uneven little wheezes, even though Valdez assures Gabe that the bullet missed everything important. Gabe knows she knows the beginnings of a panic attack when he sees one, but doesn’t want to call attention to it, lest he make it any worse. So he hangs back, arms folded tightly over his chest, eyes on Valdez as she keeps Jesse from bleeding out. 

They land back at Grand Mesa only a little while later. Gabe sends Valdez with Jesse to medical, promising to stop by once he’s certain the hostiles are secured. He watches Jesse hobble off with Valdez’s hand at his back, steadying him, and wishes it could be him comforting Jesse instead. 

Gabe switches his focus to the hostiles. He’s able to focus on that for at least a little bit - long enough to get them through intake and to get Edwards started on the first round of questioning. Once they’re settled, an hour or two after touching down, Gabe makes a beeline to medical. He runs into Valdez in the hallway. 

“How is he?” Gabe asks without preamble. Valdez gives Gabe a little shrug. 

“Like he said, he’s had worse. No surgery required even. But he seems a little… off. Shaken, maybe,” Valdez says. Gabe wonders how much of his past Jesse has shared with the other members of the Blackwatch strike team. 

“I’ll go talk to him,” Gabe says. “Good work today.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Gabe steps past Valdez and into medical. It’s a smaller facility than the one at the Swiss headquarters, but it’s well-appointed, at least. Gabe spots Jesse sitting up in a bed at the far end of the triage room. His face is turned towards the narrow window next to his bed, a sheet over his legs, and his hands clasped in his lap. Gabe lets his footsteps fall heavily as he approaches, not wanting to startle him. 

“Hey,” Gabe says, his voice soft, the concern bleeding into his tone. Jesse flinches a little before he turns his head to look at Gabe. His eyebrows are drawn together, his jaw is set and tight. 

“Hey.”

“Did the doc patch you up?”

“Yeah. Won’t even scar.”

“That’s good,” Gabe says, coming to a stop beside Jesse’s bed. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands for a moment, wanting desperately to gather Jesse up in his arms and make sure for himself that Jesse is actually okay. Instead, he folds his arms tightly across his chest. 

“Yeah,” Jesse says. He looks away again. Gabe feels that vice clench around his heart again. 

“Jesse,” Gabe says softly, so softly that maybe Jesse doesn’t hear. But Jesse turns his head slightly towards Gabe even as his eyes stay trained on the setting sun outside the window. “Are you okay?”

Jesse snorts, then winces. He puts a hand to his shoulder briefly before he looks back at Gabe. That hollowness has returned to his eyes, giving him a hopeless, lost look. 

“I don’t know,” Jesse says, his voice barely above a whisper. Gabe bites down hard on the inside of his cheek. He looks around for a doctor. 

“Let’s get you out of here,” Gabe says. “You’re not going to feel better in here.”

Jesse doesn’t say anything as Gabe moves away to find a doctor with discharge authorities. Gabe promises to keep an eye on Jesse, to assign him light desk work for the next week ( _ Yeah, right _ , Gabe finds himself thinking), and the goes back to Jesse. 

“You can stay with me tonight,” Gabe says. “Come on.”

They take it slow, winding through the halls of the base to Gabe’s usual quarters. None of the bases really feel like home - Gabe is forever moving around, always on one mission or another, so the pre-assigned officers’ quarters really function as little more than a landing spot between bouts of activity. Still, the base at Grand Mesa is Gabe’s favorite, and he’s taken time to make his quarters here more homey. It’s not much more than a couple of framed pictures and a few extra blankets, but it’s enough. 

Gabe lets Jesse into his room ahead of him. As the door slides shut behind them, Gabe picks up his tablet and sets a do not disturb message for the next 12 hours. It’s not much - but it’s what they can take. When Gabe looks up, Jesse is still standing in the middle of the room in his medical-issued scrubs. 

“Here, I’ve got some sweats you can have,” Gabe says. He moves around Jesse, giving him a wide berth, and pulls an old T-shirt from SEP and a pair of well-loved sweatpants from his drawer. He holds them out to Jesse, who accepts them after a beat. His hand shakes. 

“Jesse,” Gabe says gently. “What do you need?”

Jesse raises his eyes to meet Gabe’s. They’re rimmed red, shiny with tears. Gabe bites down on the inside of his cheek again and tastes blood. 

“I just - I just -” Jesse says, his voice wavering. Gabe waits, patient, but Jesse shakes his head. 

“Okay. Okay - let’s get you changed. We can catch up on  _ Dog Cops  _ or something, yeah?”

Jesse nods jerkily. Gabe helps him strip off the scrubs and pull on the sweats. He tries not to stare at the bullet wound in Jesse’s shoulder that’s already mostly healed over. Gabe knew better than to send them on this mission - but it’s too late for that. All he can do now is make it right. 

Gabe maneuvers them both to the sofa and sits with his arm along the back. Jesse sits with some space between them at first, but it’s only for a moment. He tips sideways and lands in Gabe’s lap, his cheek pillowed against Gabe’s thigh. Gabe slides his hand into Jesse’s hair. 

“Is this okay?” Gabe asks. Jesse nods without lifting his head. Gabe rubs his fingers gently over Jesse’s scalp with one hand as he turns on the TV with the other. He finds the last episode of  _ Dog Cops _ they managed to catch and settles back against the couch cushions. 

They watch an episode, and then another. Jesse seems to relax in increments. His injured shoulder slumps back against Gabe’s chest. The slight tremble in his body calms. His breath slows and evens out. Gabe doesn’t stop stroking his fingers through Jesse’s hair, hoping that he’s comfortable enough to drift off to sleep. After a third episode, Gabe is almost certain that Jesse is asleep. He doesn’t move to check, just keeps moving his hand slowly, steadily. The credits roll on the fourth episode when Gabe begins to feel the droop in his own body, his exhaustion catching up with him. His hand slows, his eyes begin to close.

“I knew him,” Jesse says out of nowhere, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the music playing with the credits. Gabe’s hand stills completely. He doesn’t say anything - doesn’t know what to say. The silence stretches on. Jesse doesn’t move from Gabe’s lap, but his body is still slack, more or less relaxed against Gabe’s. “The hostile in the warehouse. It - he was Deadlock. His name is Cliff. Was.”

“I’m sorry,” Gabe says, mostly just to fill the silence, needing to say  _ something _ . Jesse lets out a hollow little laugh. 

“Cliff was a piece of shit,” Jesse says. “He was older - one of the older kids. They thought they were hotshots ‘cause they were older, thought they could make us do shit… Cliff was one of the worst.”

Jesse falls silent again. Gabe can taste bile on the back of his tongue. He knows a little about the intricacies of the dynamics of Deadlock, of the power structure of the gang. Jesse had been well-respected, even at a young age, and Gabe knew the sorts of things he had had to do to prove himself to the Deadlock hierarchy. Jesse didn’t talk about it with Gabe, and Gabe didn’t press. He isn’t Jesse’s therapist. What Gabe knows is gleaned from the months of undercover work it took to bring the gang down. It wasn’t pretty. 

“I’m glad he’s dead then,” Gabe says eventually. He feels Jesse shudder, or maybe flinch, in his lap. 

“Me too,” Jesse says. He finally turns onto his back to look up at Gabe. His face is cast in the blue shadows from the light coming off the TV. There’s a strange look in his eyes. “Does that make me a bad person?” Jesse asks, his voice hoarse. Gabe fees his chest clench up. 

“No - God, Jesse. No, that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“It just feels - it feels like we ain’t much better than folks like Cliff, like Deadlock. We got a fancy title and the UN tells us it’s okay but it’s still - we’re still murderers at the end of the day,” Jesse says, his voice wavering on each word. 

“It’s different,” Gabe says immediately, even though he’s had the same thought before. On low days, when the doubts creep in, it feels impossible to rationalize what he does for a living. Counter-terrorism is still terrorism for some. And then there’s the collateral damage…

Jesse is looking at Gabe critically, his breath coming quick again. 

“Is it, though?” Jesse says. “At the end of the day…”

“At the end of the day, we’re making the world a safer place. So people like Cliff don’t get to do unspeakable things to kids. So those kids can be safe and grow up and not have to worry that their world’s gonna come crashing down around them,” Gabe says. The words come pouring out easily; it’s a variation on a mantra he’s repeated to himself time after time. He reaches for a framed picture sitting on the side table next to the sofa. He hands it to Jesse. “These are my sister’s kids. We do hard things, Jesse. We do all the dirty work, the heavy lifting, so that my nieces and nephews don’t have to. It’s not pretty but it’s… it’s noble.”

Jesse holds the picture frame with both hands, staring at it for a long time. 

“I don’t have anything like this,” Jesse says, his eyes still on the smiling faces of Gabe’s family. “I ain’t got nothing.”

“You have me, Jesse,” Gabe says softly. Jesse drags his eyes up to look at him. Gabe recognizes the look in his eyes now; the fear, the loneliness, the doubt. Gently, he takes the photo out of Jesse’s hands and sets it back on the side table. “You have me,” Gabe says again, more firmly this time. Jesse swallows thickly. Gabe slips a hand over his cheek. “ _ I  _ think you’re a good person. You’re strong, you’re brave. You’re smart. I couldn’t have built Blackwatch without you. I could never have done all the things that I’ve done if I didn’t have you at my side. You’ve - you’ve made such an enormous difference in my life, Jesse.”

Jesse looks away, a muscle working in his jaw. Gabe lets him. He doesn’t want to push Jesse too far, but he needs to know how much he means to Gabe. 

Gabe lets the silence sit. It’s not uncomfortable, even though Jesse isn’t looking at him. 

After a long, long time, Jesse exhales. Gabe doesn’t say anything immediately, doesn’t move, wanting to let Jesse make the decision as to what happens next. Gabe can be patient. For Jesse, Gabe can be anything. 

“Thanks,” Jesse says, finally, even though it sounds like a word he’s landed on without knowing what else to say. Gabe reaches down to lace his fingers with Jesse’s. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Jesse. I’m glad you’ve made it this far,” Gabe says. “You’ve survived so much. You’ve done so much. And I’m lucky to have you here with me.”

Jesse shifts onto his back again to look up at Gabe. 

“Thanks,” Jesse says again, this time more sincerely, full of feeling. Gabe gives him a little smile. 

“I love you, Jesse. And I’m here for you - whatever you need.”

Jesse nods slowly, his eyes roaming over Gabe’s face. “I love you too, Gabe.”

“Do you want to finish this episode? Or we can just go to bed,” Gabe says. Jesse turns back onto his side, crowding in a little closer to Gabe, cuddling up to him. 

“Can we re-watch the last episode? I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Of course, Jesse,” Gabe says. He reaches for the remote and rewinds the episode to start from the beginning. He feels Jesse settle in, markedly more relaxed now, though Gabe can still see a bit of tension in his jaw. 

They both end up falling asleep halfway through the episode. 


End file.
